Thursday, December 20, 2012

This fall has been a time of crisis,
reflection and transformation, as we at Capitol
Hill Friends have sensed God calling us to move outside the
comfortable forms of 20th-century Quakerism and embrace the ways that
the Holy Spirit is working and wants to work in this present
generation. At the same time, we are being knit together into a wider
community - the Friends of Jesus Fellowship - a dispersed yet
cohesive community of like-hearted sisters and brothers who are
committed to living and sharing the gospel in the world today.

In the past month, I have been able to
participate in a concrete expression of this new movement, working
with a number of fellow ministers to organize a revival
meeting in Philadelphia. The decision to hold a public meeting for
worship - and to call it a "revival" - was the result of a
long period of discernment in community. Over time, it became clear
that God was calling us to do this bold thing, inviting others into
an opportunity to deepen our walk with the Spirit, and to open
ourselves to the life of Jesus.

There were about eight of us on the
team that helped to plan the revival, five local residents and three
visitors from Michigan, Baltimore and DC. We laid the groundwork for
the revival meeting in a series of weekly conference calls over a
period of about a month, finally meeting together in person the night
before the event. This process of planning, discernment and prayer
was deeply beneficial for us as a network of like-hearted friends.
Over the course of our preparation, we came to know one another
better, and I sensed that new depths of leadership were being
developed among us. The planning process was at least as worthwhile
as the event itself.

We gathered for the revival meeting on
a Thursday night, in a home in West Philadelphia. The evening began
with a potluck dinner, and by the time worship worship started at
7:00, there were about fifty people present. The meeting commenced
with a period of singing, led by a couple of the local planners. When
the music concluded, it was announced that we would be entering into
waiting worship, and that our three visiting ministers would be
speaking out of the silence.

This ended up being really awkward for
me, because the Lord gave me very little to say. My two fellow
ministers delivered outstanding sermons, and it was clear to me that
the Spirit had used them to take us in the direction that we needed
to go. For a while, I thought that I would remain silent the whole
meeting - which was uncomfortable, since I literally had people
turning around and looking at me. They wondered when I would speak,
since it had been announced! Mercifully, the Lord did give me a few
words to deliver - totally unrelated to the message that God had been
preparing within me for the weeks leading up to the revival.

This process was really hard on me. It
took me days to recover from the raw sensation of being broken down
in this way. Yet, this experience was a spiritual baptism for me,
teaching me greater reliance on the power and guidance of the Holy
Spirit, weaning me away from my tendency to trust in my own strength.

Though the meeting was hard for me on a
personal level, I felt that the revival was blessed. There were no
big explosions, no apparent mass conversions, no gaudy altar calls.
But I did sense that hearts were being moved and that the risen Lord
Jesus was among us, teaching. As I said to a fellow worker
immediately after the worship, I feel that we did the best we could
with the faith, gifts and condition of all who were present. I
believe that we were faithful, in measure.

Following the revival meeting, six of
us from the Friends of Jesus Fellowship ended up attending a
Christ-centered Friends gathering held at Manhasset
Friends Meeting House on Long Island; four of us came up from the
Philadelphia event, and two others traveled from New Jersey and New
England. The time on Long Island was covered by Christ's presence.
All of us felt that there was a "sweet spirit" among the
group, and it was comforting to be able to rest in the Lord after
such an intense effort in Philadelphia.

I was very impressed by the spiritual
depth and grounding of Friends at Manhasset and the other Friends who
attended the Christ-centered Friends gathering. We made many good
connections over the weekend, which I hope we can continue to nurture
as we move forward as Friends of Jesus.

It is phenomenal to feel how the Lord's
work is moving forward at this time. Over the course of the last
several years, we have experienced many setbacks. This ministry that
we are engaged in is a marathon, not a sprint, and we know from
experience that there will be highs and lows. But at this time, there
is a sense of expansiveness and serendipitous blessing. Our spiritual
ancestors would probably have named this experience as one of divine
providence.

God is indeed providing
for us, opening the way forward to be gathered together as Christ's
body. On the big-picture level, we sense the Holy Spirit knitting us
together as a new people in the Friends of Jesus Fellowship. We are
developing organic leadership remarkably quickly, and we are trying
to stay adaptable as we incorporate new individual leaders and groups
into our network. In Washington, DC, we are experiencing the Lord's
grace in providing us with the faith, insight and spiritual gifts
that we need to become a maturing community that bears the marks of
Jesus' character.

The next several months will be crucial
for our development as a community. The Friends of Jesus Fellowship
is experimenting with ways to support one another at a distance as we
seek to build strong local groups. Electronic tools - email, video
chat and conference calls - help connect us between gatherings, and
we make efforts to visit one another in person as often as possible.

We know that true revival does not
consist in an evening of worship. Rather, we are being revived
through ongoing transformation into the image of Christ. This
extended process involves heart, soul, mind and strength, and it is
through spiritually grounded and mature communities that we develop
the capacity to be transformed and produce leadership that is
transforming. This is the work of the coming year, and of the rest of
our lives.

1 comment:

In the midst of all your reflections about the recent Quaker revival meeting in Philadelphia, may I ask a sort of prosaic question: what do you do to help Friends feel the presence of God / create a sense of gathered Meeting when you meet by conference call? Do you have any practices you follow?

--What do you do to cut down people's tendency to interrupt each other?

--Do you have a favorite text or reading people clerking these meetings use to help people center? Are there other approaches you use to help Friends participate in a centered way?

I participate in both conference calls and in-person meetings and some people find conference calls incredibly difficult. I have various thoughts but at the moment I am curious about others' experiences.

You also mentioned texting and email. What do you do in these channels to maintain a sense of centered conversation, gathered presence? Again, I ask because of wide variation among Friends around me about even imagining the Divine moving through email.